Please don’t call me a social scientist

Professor Nicolas Lewis, Inaugural Lecture

Knowledge is always political. What knowledge we make and how we translate it are pivotal to the worlds we might make. That is why the public university is so important. A fierce critic of many of its directions of travel but an ever-hopeful defender of its possibilities, I argue in this talk that it must be fought for.

The lecture traces a journey from fresh-faced immigrant to transdisciplinary scholar and committed citizen of the University of Auckland. Making meaning of what has been as much a privileged and fun-filled wandering as a career pathway, the talk is anchored to three current preoccupations: the demise of political economy and Geography in New Zealand; the rise of an anaemic conception of transdisciplinarity; and the rentierism of the current government. I read these trends against the backdrop of challenges to the university from the position of a political economist and geographer within a Science Faculty. Much is to be made from this position of what it means to be labelled a social scientist. Much is to be done to fashion a future for Geography.